icelandic music

by request - an old one - some icelandic stuff. some good, some bad.

jan mayen - the new kids on the indie block. old fashioned indie rock a la, maybe, pavement. nothing too original but, god damnit, some hot tunes. shut up shut down.

mugison - everyone's darling these days. really a cuddly bear that everyone from, well, me to my grandma loves and adore. even if they have never heard his music. he is the perfect anti-anti-star. so down to earth, hailing from a remote village, occasionally brings his father on stage that he should never be a star. but it is exactly that which makes him the biggest star. undeniably talented. i would love to hate him but i can't. i want you.

trabant - along with gus gus (which were actually not that horrible a long long time ago) this band represents almost everything that is wrong with iceland. pretentious pretty much sums it up. and pretty horrid songs. although their shows can be mildly entertaining (which can not be said for gus gus - god, i hate them). nasty boy

eberg - noone seems to know eberg. he released a little popgem a year and half ago that went almost completly unnoticed. one can almost forgive having been a member of spoon (uh, the icelandic spoon - not the really good one). he is a little difficult to listen to at first because he sounds like he has inhaled helium but after a couple of listens it becomes clear it is surely the most innovative pop album released by an icelander (with the possible exception of mugison). single drop from sea

the funerals - i resisted the funerals for a long time. can you blame me? an icelandic (alt-)country band? their album lordy is, however, a pleasant surprise being more reminiscent of bonnie prince billy - of course, a comparison that noone can live upto - than say, uh, more countrish country. stockholm city

mínus - i'll have to give mínus a credit for being pretty tight live. but that is all they get from me. terrible singer, unoriginal songs but yet, for some reason, are billed as the saviors of icelandic rock'n'roll. here comes the night

úlpa - i was completly blown away by these guys the first time i saw them play. they reside somewhere in between flaming lips and radiohead but throw a healthy dose of rock in the mix. i have high hopes for these lads. dinzl

slowblow - slowblow are just a nice band. they sound nice and use all sorts of instruments. which i sometimes wished they didn't b/c the songs themselves get a little buried under the instrumentation. at any rate i do have to admit that i liked their older stuff better - it was both more melodic and edgier somewho. i still suspect that those elements are still there i just find them damn hard to find but in the meantime i'm quite content with the saws and the sewing machines. very slow bossanova

ampop - electronic pop influenced by radiohead. quiet and quite nice. their new material relies less on electronics which in some ways is an improvement because they sound less like radiohead but unfortunately that means they sound more like coldplay. but on the whole quite pleasant and to be fair sometimes they are more post-shoegaze pastoral pop than the aforementioned. worth a listen. a fresh one.

hjalmar - there is something fundamentally wrong about an icelandic reagge band. which is why i avoided them for the longest time and was very surprised when i found out i actually like them. now, this may just be that may taste in music is bad i can't tell. it just seems impossible that something this wrong can be this good. here is a live one.

kimono - is the best band in iceland because they know who polvo are. japanese policeman is from their last album which was good but didn't quite capture their live shows.

some others:
tenderfoot - country
graveslime - 362 days until christmas
skakkamanage - flames of fire
skatar - halldor asgrimsson